Fundraiser Gives Back To Alice Brock
Thank you all the callers to the station who knew the answer to our Facebook question.
Alice Brock became a reluctant celebrity after Arlo Guthrie immortalized her in his Thanksgiving song, Alice’s Restaurant. Now friends and strangers are trying to give back to Brock.
Arlo Guthrie wrote “Alice’s Restaurant” about a Thanksgiving in western Massachusetts. It connected with listeners on FM radio and led to a Hollywood film. And it’s still a staple on radio this time of year. But the songs heroine has fallen on hard times. The famous living legend Earth Mother Alice of Alice’s Restaurant is struggling to pay the rent. She lost the house she owned in Provincetown on Cape Cod and two years ago was hospitalized with heart disease and the lung condition COPD.
So friends she’s helped over the years are helping her with a GoFundMe campaign.
Alice Brock wrote the spin-off “Alice’s Restaurant Cookbook,” went on a book tour and became, she insists, a reluctant star. She remembers that people would come in to the restaurant. And they’d look around. They’d see the cookbook, and they’d go, are you the Alice? Everybody told me what they were doing in the ’60s. It was great. So I said, hey, this isn’t bad. All you need to do is say my name, and people start to smile. After her diner closed, she opened a larger restaurant where she hired her friends and others in need. Alice Brock can’t draw anymore because of the tremors in her hands, but she’s still cooking.
-Dylan
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